Budget Expected This Week

Legislators Still At Odds Over Size Of Spending Cuts

Budget Accord Expected This Week

Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and legislative leaders predicted Monday they will approve a budget this week, but underlying the optimism were major disagreements over how deeply they can further cut spending.

Some Republican senators demanded as much as $400 million in cuts in return for supporting an income tax, while Democrats said no more than $25 million could be cut from the proposed $7.7 billion budget for 1991-92.

The sharp disagreement over cuts raised questions about lawmakers' ability to adopt a budget before midnight Sunday, when the expiration of a temporary appropriations act is expected to force another partial government shutdown.

Once a consensus is reached on spending cuts, lawmakers and Weicker still must negotiate details of a tax package -- itself a daunting task. Legislators have yet to line up behind one of several tax plans being circulated.

Spending cuts dominated discussions Monday, the 29th day the state has been without a budget. Until recently, the debate centered around which taxes would be raised to cover an estimated deficit of $937 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

The turn to spending was prompted late last week by as many as four Senate Republicans who said they would reconsider their opposition to an income tax in return for deeper cuts. Weicker's administration already had cut $1.1 billion from the spending sought by state agency heads.

Senate Democrats met all afternoon and into the evening to review a list of programs and grants that are not required by contracts, federal mandates or court decrees. The list totaled nearly $1.2 billion in spending.

The Democratic co-chairmen of the appropriations committee, Sen. Joseph H. Harper Jr. of New Britain and Rep. William R. Dyson of New Haven, said that any further cuts must come from that list.

"Legislators will recognize today that none of these cuts are going to be easy. These are all programs that are very popular," Harper said. "Many of them affect elderly, disabled and needy

groups. Many of them affect property tax rates in their communities. But this is what's left in a budget of over $7 billion. These are the optional cuts."

The programs and agencies not protected by mandates, decrees or labor contracts included $206 million in local aid for education, $20 million for prescriptions for the elderly and $55 million in funding for services ranging from day care to teenage-pregnancy prevention.

Harper predicted few of the programs would be cut. "They will require a political will that I have yet to see exercised up here in making such cuts," he said.

The list was produced by the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis at the request of Dyson and Harper.

"The purpose of the list is to say, `OK, folks. You want some cuts? Here. Here's a list. Pick 'em.' Now here's an opportunity for them to pick them," Dyson said.

He called the premise that as much as $400 million could be cut crazy.

"I can't see any more than $15 or $25 million more," Dyson said, stating publicly what other Democrats were saying privately. "It's going to be difficult to do beyond that."

Weicker met for slightly more than an hour with Senate Republicans at their invitation. He was upbeat when he emerged from the Senate Republican caucus room, but short on specifics.

"It was not just civil, it was pleasant," Weicker said. "It was meaningful."

Senate Minority Leader M. Adela Eads, R-Kent, said she believed that only three Republican senators, whom she would not identify, were seriously considering an income tax.

Sen. William H. Nickerson of Greenwich was the only GOP senator to vote for a previous income tax passed by the House and defeated in the Senate.

William Aniskovich of Branford, Lawrence Bettencourt of Waterford, James Fleming of Simsbury and Robert Genuario of Norwalk have since said they will consider a tax on wages under the right circumstances.

All four said they want the adoption of constitutional and statutory spending caps, plus the consideration of a move toward consolidation of state agencies that could mean major savings in the future.

In the cases of Aniskovich and Fleming, the right circumstances appear also to include cuts in 1991-92 that are far deeper than Democrats would accept: as much as $400 million.

"Until we get that, I'm not even talking about taxes," Aniskovich said.

The others appeared more flexible.

Bettencourt said he has concluded that the only way to break the impasse over the budget is to adopt an income tax. He declined to name the minimum amount of cuts he would require to vote for such a plan.

Three Republicans could be enough to pass a tax package.

Democrats hope to provide 15 votes, making 18 votes for an income tax in the 36-member Senate. Lt. Gov. Eunice S. Groark would then be able to break the tie by casting a vote for an income tax.

Weicker proposed a 6 percent income tax in February that would have allowed the lowering of the 8 percent sales tax to 4.25 percent, plus a cut in business taxes. The sales tax, however,

would have been expanded to items now exempt.

Most of the tax plans now being discussed call for smaller taxes on wages than that sought by Weicker, with a modest reduction in the sales tax rate.